Armed Resistance or Terrorism?

I’ve  never advocated for armed resistance, but also don’t judge those who do. The Palestinians have lived under a belligerent occupation for 59 years. The land Israel occupies is land that was allocated for the establishment of the future state of Palestine. 56% of mandatory Palestine was taken from the Palestinians with the implementation of the UN Partition Plan. The War of Independence (1948) had left Israel with 76% of mandatory Palestine. International law does not allow the conquerer to keep land acquired through conflict. 

In 1967, war (the Six Day War) broke out.  Once the dust settled, Israel now held 100% of mandatory Palestine. There was nothing left to build a Palestinian state with. Just as they did in 1948, Israel refused to return land they acquired during the war. Shortly after Israel began the occupation, it began transferring the Israeli population to occupied Palestinian territory, one settlement after another. This is also a war crime. The Palestinians began living in an apartheid state. 

The settlers were violent then and are violent now. They shoot at children on the way to school. They drop urine on the Palestinians through the grate over where the Palestinians walked in Hebron. The children of the settlers also were violent bullies. They learned well from their parent.

Every zionist living in the West Bank are required to arm themselves (military grade Uzis) under law. In Hebron the number of police exceeds the Israeli population four to one. Not only does the IDF allow settler violence in plain sight, they also participate in it. 

Settlers kill the livestock of the Palestinians, kick them out of their homes, set fire to the olive groves, killing trees that have been growing for over a thousand years. The olives harvested from the trees is their source of income. Their houses are demolished on a regular basis. If that isn’t bad enough, the IDF comes in and arrest Palestinian children in the middle of the night. They refuse to tell their parents where they are being taken. Sometimes the children are not released, but thrown into arbitrary administrative detention. Israel denies Palestinians access to their farming land. Conveniently, Israel passed a law that after a year, untended land allows Israel to take it. First Israel cuts of access to the land and then they take it.

Nelson Mandela understood the nature of the Palestinian struggle. In 1964 during the South African struggle against the apartheid he said, 

“Firstly, we believed that as a result of Government policy, violence by the African people had become inevitable, and that unless responsible leadership was given to canalize and control the feelings of our people, there would be outbreaks of terrorism which would produce an intensity of bitterness and hostility between the various races of this country which is not produced even by war.  Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.”

Self determination is a basic, fundamental human right.  It is not something that one has to bargain for, nor earn.  It is an inherent, moral obligation afforded to all, regardless of race, creed, gender or ethnicity.  Although Gandhi committed himself to passive resistance, he didn’t rule out violence as a legitimate expression of revolt..  He understood its necessity in certain circumstances, “where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence … I prefer to use arms in defence of  honour rather than remain the vile witness of dishonour…”.

When a people are ruled by an oppressor that denies event fundamental basic human rights, what is left?  How can a people mercilessly killed not defend themselves? The second intifada started because Israel failed to live up to the obligations agreed upon in the Oslo II accords.

How can one remain passive when after decades of repression, violence, and denial of fundamental human rights?  At what point does resistance move from passivity to armed revolt? 

When the second intifada broke out in September 2000, Israel immediately responded with disproportionate force (also illegal under international law). Within the first few days, the Israeli military expended massive amounts of ammunition. By Israel’s own military archives, 1.3 million rounds of ammunition were used on Palestinians.

With each passing year, the occupation grows in violence, harassment and humiliation. Israel controls the lives of the Palestinians in every aspect. Villages are closed through military order making the lives of the Palestinian miserable. To visit someone that took 5 minutes to reach, now takes hours. Rather than walk short distance to their destination, they have walk a long distance to navigate through the closed areas. This is also done to those farming land. 

There is no legitimate reason to close any of the villages under military order. The sole reason they do is to make the life of a Palestinian as difficult as they can. They think up new ways to do this on a regular basis. 

The situation is untenable. The Palestinians have been abandoned by world, predominantly western nations, been betrayed with every peace negotiation which are never upheld by Israel. The narrative that follows is that the Palestinians, first Yasser Arafat, then Mamhoud Abbas, were unreasonable and were responsible for not achieving an agreement. Nothing has ever been offered to the Palestinians. Israel will not negotiate pre-conditions. The pre-conditions are the entire basis of the conflict. The International Court of Justice’s advisory ruling of July 2004 resolved all four preconditions. Their ruling was not in Israel’s favour. 

The conflict has become a spectacle. Israel treats international law with complete impunity. The list of their war crimes is extensive. Western nations have allowed these crimes. Israel refuses to govern under international law. Western nations have allowed this. They are complicit in  apartheid under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. They are complicit in genocide under the Convention of the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide”.

The state of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people did not come from the events of October 7, 2023. Since the birth of Israel, the transfer of the Palestinians was always the plan. Genocide was just one of the options to meet their objective. The force behind this 77 year old conflict has been one thing and one thing only, land expansion, not terrorism. 

Chairman Heilbrun from the Committee for the Re-election of General Schlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, said,”We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves.” 

That statement along is clear and obvious what Israel intentions have been since the very beginning.